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'"' AGARDENofYESTERDAY 

EDITH LIVINGSTON SMITH 




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A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 



A GARDEN OF 
YESTERDAY 

BY 

EDITH LIVINGSTON SMITH 




NEW YORK 

E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY 

681 FIFTH AVENUE 



(Uf^ 



?J 



COPYRIGHT, 1921, 

E. P. BUTTON & COMPANY 



All Bights Eeserved . « \ 






0ift 



Printed in the United States of America 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 



The author wishes to acknowledge 
the courtesy of the proprietors of 
Good KouseTceeping and Rouse and 
Garden in whose columns respectively 
appeared the verses and the story 
which follow. 



The cookies that my grandma bahed 
were under loch and key, 

But just a little word of ^' please^* 
was open sesame, 

And grandmAa's smile was sunshine 
to a little girl like me. 



My gramdma had a garden with a 

picket fence around 
Where grew the sweetest flowers 

that a honey bee e'er found, 
And a brook that got our feet wet, 

'way at the farthest bound. 



The trees in front of Grandma's 
house had roots that stayed 
right out 



To make us homes for paper dolls, 
while birds sang high about, 

And fairies danced at night-time 
there, I^m sure without a 
doubt. 



If I could have one single wish come 

true and always stag, 
Vd wish to be just little and that 

we could move away, 
And live in Grandma's house with 

her for ever and a day. 



A GARDEN OF 
YESTERDAY 

When a story-booh Grand- 
mother planted Sympathy in 
the heart of a little girl she 
did not know it would grow 
two flowers: — Remembrance 
and Understanding. 

HEN Now walks down 
the lane of Long Ago 
and sees there a little 
girl who is a woman to- 
day, there steals over the memory 
a sense of unreality of the changes 
and chances of time which weigh 
events in the scale of importance. 
It is as easy for recollection to say 
[1] 




A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

^4t is'' as for actuality to say 
**it was''; one has but to turn the 
bend in the road of twisted years 
and there is the flower from which 
the faded fragrance steals, there is 
the music from which the silence 
trembles, there is the child-happi- 
ness of unresponsibility in which 
the idleness of old age finds its 
image — and its dream of peace. 

When Now walks down the lane 
of Long Ago a woman's hands 
reach out eagerly to clutch the child- 
ish fingers which were hers, her 
heart encompasses the doubts and 
fears of a wistful, wondering open- 
ing consciousness — a woman's un- 
derstanding bridges the years. 

If you go with me, you must shut 
the lower half of the double door 
[2] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

of the big white house — Grand- 
mother's house — for she calls, 
^^Shut the door, childie, and don't 
forget the garden gate,'' so we must 
do what she asks. 

*'Yes, Grandmother,'' you must 
answer; not just '^Yes'm," as you 
may to the school-teacher. 

It is only a step to the gar- 
den gate. The latch lifts easily. 
Whitewashed picket fences are 
nicer than painted ones, aren't 
they? 

Why! 

Because Grandmother's fence is 
whitewashed and the house too, 
shingle on shingle; she won't have 
it painted. 

Now turn and wave your hand to 
Grandmother, for she is looking to 
see if you really shut the gate — 
[3] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY ' 

that's so the chickens won't get in. 

^'Keep in the shade, child,'' she 
calls. 

(Yes, there were shadows in 
Grandmother's garden; how 
strange!) 

You must take a long breath, be- 
cause the minute you shut the gate 
and think where you are, you can 
smell it all at once — the box that 
edges the paths, the phlox and the 
hollyhocks, the larkspur and four 
o 'clocks, the bachelor buttons and 
ten weeks' stock; the sweet peas 
and candytuft, and mignonette and 
sweet geranium (it needs a very 
long breath) ; the lavender and 
heliotrope, and poppies and forget- 
me-nots; the pansies and nastur- 
tiums and sunflowers, and all the 
other blossoms — ^wealth of green 
[4] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

and color; mixed with the drowsy 
hum of insects — borne on the clear 
note of a bird, shut in by the over- 
flowing sense of sunlight and tree- 
tops, and the under tenderness of 
Summer's growth. 

You mustn't go down the middle 
path first for that one comes last. 
No, don't go to your wrong hand 
side. When I was much littler than 
I am now I learned my right hand 
from my wrong one by the paths in 
the garden. On the wrong side 
are all the things to eat — ^peas and 
beans and corn and such things 
that are nice — for dinner, but not 
when one just comes on a visit to 
the garden. 

Over here? Yes, there are some 
things to eat, but in with the flowers, 
currant bushes and pear trees that 
[5] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

have to be propped up with long 
sticks because they are going to 
have so many pears; and peach 
trees and plum trees — just a few — 
and the flowers that like to be shady 
grow underneath them. 

Hear how the bumble bees bum- 
ble around the ever blooming roses 
and the lilies. Did you ever see 
lilies so much taller than little girls I 
They can look right over the fence. 
Great big red ones and white ones, 
that smell 'most as sweet as roses, 
and the tiger ones with freckles 
like mine. 

If you were a fairy would you 
rather dance here or under the 
poppy umbrellas? 

You would? 

Well no, I wouldn't because they 
don 't really. I beg your pardon, but 
[6] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

if yon want to see the place where 
they meet in the moonlight (there 
are other places too — ont under the 
big trees by the front gate, where 
the roots of the trees grow right 
ont of the gronnd to make houses 
for paper dolls is one, and down in 
the glen) — ^but if you want to see 
their most favorite place, it is down 
the middle garden path. Yes, let 
us go. 

Here, you see the box stops edg- 
ing the paths and the bushes do it 
instead. Those are peony bushes 
and bleeding heart — the peonies are 
all gone now like most of the roses 
and the lilies of the valley by the 
fence — ^and here is a trellis that 
makes a bridge over the path for 
the grapes to grow over. You can 
sit here on the benches under the 
[7] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

trellis if yon want to. I often do 
when the grapes are ripe. 

'*Yon never saw so many old- 
fashioned flowers f Do yon like 
new-fashioned ones best? What 
kind are they?— You don't?— Oh, 
I am glad, for Grandmother and 
Mother and I all like this kind and 
there is snch a lot of them. Now, 
the big path stops this side of the 
trellis and it gets little with just 
trees and grass on each side of it. 
Your skirts are long. I am so 
sorry — it takes the dew such a long 
time to dry. Mine don't touch the 
grass, you see. 

Now this is where the fairies 
come. See the cobwebs on the 
grass? That's what people call 
them, but they are really the table 
covers of the fairies when they have 
[8] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

had supper out here in the garden 
at night. The trees grow closer 
and closer here. When little girls 
are alone they always run down this 
bit of the path. 

**Whyr' 

I don't know exactly, but— I 
think 1*11 take your hand, please — 
to show you the way. 

Now, go slow again. The sun 
sifts through the trees just like 
the flour does through the sifter 
when Grandmother makes sponge 
cake. See how long and soft the 
grass is here, and the path stops 
being a path and is just an open 
space — now it's a path again and 
where it turns — guess 1 

'*You cannot r' 

A big tree and a seat made of 
twisted wood. Isn 't that the loveli- 
[9] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

est place to play house? Here is 
where Grandmother and Grand- 
father used to sit. Grandmother 
told me so. 

Hark! Do you hear singing? 
It^s the brook right down at the 
bottom of this little hill. Grand- 
mother said that the brook sang all 
their words to musio as if it was a 
song when she and Grandfather 
were lovers. 

Do you know what a lover is? 
It's Grandfathers and Grand- 
mothers before there is any you. 

But lovers don't fade like the 
roses, Grandmother says. They 
keep on gathering all the sweetness 
of love into all the years just like 
the bees do honey — oh! I can't ex- 
plain. You ask Grandmother — ^lit- 
tle girls never can explain, but 
[10] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

they know because they feel it all 
inside. 

**Some day, dear child, you will 
understand these things and life,'' 
Grandmother says. *'0h, Grand- 
mother, I know,'' I say. **That is 
I know the outside of it all. It is 
just like the breath of the garden, 
that is, all of it; even if little girls 
don't know the name of each flower, 
they can understand the sweetness 
is all of them. Isn 't that like life I ' ' 

**Yes, philosopher," Grand- 
mother says. **It is like a garden 
with the roses and the thorns, the 
sun and the shadows, the spring- 
time and the dead, dead leaves, the 
lilacs and the bittersweet; but a 
child knows not of thorns and 
shadows, and bittersweet climbs too 
high over your head. ' ' 
[11] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

Grandmother likes riddles. Most 
generally, I can't guess them. 

When we go back I'll pick you 
some flowers and we'll get some 
blackberries to eat. I know how to 
make a basket out of grape leaves 
and little sticks, and trumpet creep- 
er trumps hold quite a lot if you 
put the little berries in them. 
Here — HERE — ^we are! Don't you 
love it? Don't you? You must 
say you do. Isn't that the dearest, 
runaway brook? Doesn't it sound 
cool when it splashes over the 
rocks f And you can learn all abou»t 
geography — I mean islands and 
isthmuses and peninsulas — ^when 
you go in paddling. 

What a pity! I forgot your 
skirts were so long. Would you 
get them wet ? Perhaps you would. 
[12] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

Oh, thank you. Are you sure it 
is polite — ^you really wouldn't 
mind if I went in paddling alone! 
Yes, I always do 

Is it as late as that? We must 
go back. I wish we had brought 
some cookies. Perhaps we can find 
some early pears. You can never 
guess why, when I'm in Grand- 
mother 's dining-room I think of the 
garden 'most always. 

** Flowers on the table T' Yes, but 
not that — sometimes it's currants, 
sometimes it's pears stewed in 
molasses — or early it's strawber- 
ries and now it's blackberries — 
and sometimes I have to come out 
and get three peach leaves to put 
in the milk that Grandmother is 
heating for custard. 

[13] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

Then on Sundays I think of the 
garden. Sundays is when Grand- 
father who is dead, has his blos- 
soms. We come out here and find 
the very best flowers we can find 
and we take them in the house 
where Grandmother fills the tin 
crosses half full of moss and water, 
and then we put the flowers in those 
until they look like rainbow crosses. 
Then we go to church — early. 
Partly because Harry Clay — that's 
the white horse — goes slowly (he's 
old like Grandmother), but the sec- 
ond ** because" is that we have to 
go to the burying-ground first. 
That's where people get planted be- 
fore they grow to Heaven. 

We stop on the road and put the 
reins through a hole in the post^ — 
but Harry Clay would stand all 
[14] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

right if we didn 't — he likes standing 
best. 

Our little dead yard is near to 
the road with an evergreen hedge 
about it. Grandmother squeezes in 
through a hole in the hedge and I 
squeeze in easier after her. Then 
she puts crosses on the graves. 
There are others besides Grand- 
father's but she kneels down by his 
and so do I too, and I say **Our 
Father'' and *^Now I lay me down 
to sleep" to myself, but I get 
through before Grandmother does. 
When she is ready we go back to 
the wagon and drive a little way 
further to church. Grandmother 
ties Harry Clay again, under a shed 
this time, and while the bell rings 
just a little, we walk up a path and 
go in to church. 

[15] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

I always wear a very stiff white 
dress and a white hat and I have 
on a Roman sash. That is a sash 
that is of many colors like Joseph's 
coat in the Bible was. I don 't think 
it's pretty. Other little girls have 
them all pink or blue or all red. 
Every Sunday I say to Grand- 
mother: ** Grandmother, must I 
wear my Roman sash?" and every 
Sunday I wear it. 

Church is long. I like the music 
— the birds and the locusts sing out- 
side — the fans flutter — I get a little 
sleepy and I'm afraid I'll drop my 
five cents. Yes, I do love God and 
I try to be good — I wish my Roman 
sash was all pink ! 

The church gets over and we go 
out. Grandmother talks to ladies 
and then we go home. 
[16] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

Now we'll get the big bunch of 
flowers. 

You hold them please, while I get 
the berries. Oh! here are some 
plums on the ground. Grand- 
mother doesn't mind if we shake 
the tree a little. 

Now we must shut the gate again. 
Down that little path is where the 
cows come up from the road at 
night. The cows made that path, 
but I think the fairies helped. 

Won't you come into the housed 
Up there is where I sleep at night, 
and I can hear the crickets cricket- 
ing out here. Those green shutters 
belong to the parlor. The parlor 
has a carpet with big rings on it 
that you can play marbles in on 
rainy days. I help Grandmother 
dust the parlor in the mornings. 
[17] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

There is a weather thing with a 
little man and woman and the lady 
goes in the house when it rains and 
the man comes out, for it's politer 
for him to get wet, and there are 
so many other things I would like 
to show you. I'm sorry you can't 
come. 

On one table there is a picture 
of Grandfather. Grandmother al- 
ways dusts that table. She puts 
fresh flowers there too, every morn- 
ing in a little vase. Then she picks 
up the picture and kisses Grand- 
father and I don't talk to her. If 
she stays by the table too long I 
put my hand in hers just to remind 
her she hasn't dusted the secretary 
yet, and then she kisses me. 



Oh, Reader^ — look in my eyes — 
do you understand? 
[18] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

I am not a little girl ! It has all 
gone — the old garden, the days of 
play and nights of dreaming 
through insect song, and Grand- 
mother has no longer need of 
Grandfather's picture. 

Look quickly diown the lane of 
Long Ago if you would see a little 
girl running hard toward a white 
house with dormer windows. That 
is when she would leave her own 
home to come on one of those visits. 
The stage lets her down at the big 
gate. Then she runs past the little 
whispering grove, past the two 
horsechestnut trees that hold the 
hammock, past the circle where the 
trumpet creeper climbs high. 

The little girl is almost out of 

breath. The door of the house 

opens. An old lady comes out and 

stands on the porch. The curls 

[19] 



A GARDEN OF YESTERDAY 

eacli side of her face are twiliglit 
gray and the little girPs curls are 
yellow in the morning of life. There 
is a rnsh into open arms — ^^Oh! 
Grandmother — I Ve come ! ' ' 

Shut the double door very gently. 
Lead other little girls ' feet of your 
guiding into the garden of a Now, 
that perchance, some time in the 
years to come they may lean out of 
the window of remembrance and 
say *^Make me a child again.'' 

When the fragrance of the Past 
steals back as from a faded rose 
it is sweet, indeed, but if not^ 

Whose the reproach? Whose 
the garden spot, unplanted. 



[20] 



